Boreal's Games
by SheerwaterPhoenix
Summary: The events of THG but with Silverwing characters! Marina as Katniss, Shade as Peeta, Chinook as Gale, Goth as Cato, and Marina is the one with the sound powers. The owls are the Capitol. The Games are named "Boreal's Games" because Boreal is the king of the owls.
1. Chapter 1

**Okay, this had the most votes on my poll, and I wanted to write a Silverwing story, so here it is! Boreal's Games! And just pretend that the district/colony bats and the Capitol owls can watch the Games, even though they have no way of using that sort of technology.**

**The whole thing will be in Marina's point of view.**

**Marina's sister(the Prim character) is an OC; her name is Phoebe.**

**And for Marina's and Chinook's hunting, bugs are sold instead of caught, so the owls have another way of keeping the bats there, so Marina and Chinook hunt and sell them.**

**And also, the characters don't know each other from the events in the books/TV series. Pretty much the owls have had the Capitol/district system for a while, so the events in the books/TV series never happened.**

**Now, on with the story!**

Marina's wing felt strange without the warmth of her little sister under it. Of course Phoebe would roost with their mother—it was the night of the reaping.

Marina let go of her roost and flapped down the trunk of the tree and through the knothole. No one was out of their roosts yet—no mining on reaping night. The bats of Colony Twelve were coal miners. Coal was important to the owls because they had to keep their fire burning. They roosted on ledges of rock in the mine and chipped away with stones to get the coal, from dusk till dawn. Any bat caught out in sunlight was killed on sight by the owl guards, the Peacekeepers. And despite her home being called Colony Twelve, there were actually multiple Brightwing and Silverwing colonies. She was a Brightwing.

Luckily, her tree was near the border of Colony Twelve, so she could slip out into the out-of-bounds part of the forest where no bat went. Except for her and Chinook Silverwing, her best friend. She dove into the out-of-bounds forest and quickly made her way to her meeting place with Chinook. It was a tall tree, on the edge of a grassy hill. Marina sank her claws into the gnarly bark and only had to wait for a few seconds before Chinook arrived.

"Hey, Marina!" he called, smiling as he roosted beside her.

She smiled back, and Chinook continued. "Here—I already caught something." He waved one foot and Marina realized that he was holding a tiger moth, and a big one at that.

Her smile grew wider and she said, "We'll have a real feast!"

Chinook split the moth in half and she took hers in her teeth. After finishing their moths, Chinook mimicked the strange voice of the owls and said, "Happy Boreal's Games, and my the odds be _ever _in your favor!"

"Don't remind me," Marina growled. "It's Phoebe's first reaping."

"It's my brother's first too." Chinook was silent for a while. "We could do it, you know."

"Do what?"

"Leave Twelve. Live in the forests. We could do it."

Marina wanted to say yes. She wanted to smile and tell her mother and Phoebe that they wouldn't ever have to fear the reaping again. She wanted to be free of the owls. But it would never work. It was a crazy idea. To hopeful to be possible.

"But our families. They can't survive in the woods. I have Phoebe and my mother and you have your brothers and sister and mother."

"Maybe, but still—"

"It won't work, Chinook!" Marina cried. Chinook stared at her. "It just won't. I'm going to catch breakfast for Phoebe." She flapped off.

. . .

Marina returned to her tree with two beetles for Phoebe and a small moth for her mother. She stashed the insects in a crevice in the bark and flew off again, heading towards the square, where the bats who weren't miners lived. The forest became denser as the population increased, and met up with Chinook at the edge of the square. They each carried some flies in their claws to sell to the leader, who they knew always bought flies.

The leader's daughter, Penelope Brightwing, greeted them at the knothole. Sometimes she and Marina talked, just because neither of them really had any friends. She wasn't actually that bad, although many thought that she was a snob, being the leader's daughter.

"Prettied up tonight, huh?" Chinook asked Penelope dryly. She was very clean tonight, more so that usual, especially since she lived in the square. If you lived in the square, you didn't have grit from the mines forever embedded in your fur.

"Well, if I end up going to the Capitol I want to look nice, don't I?" Penelope replied.

"You won't be going to the Capitol," Chinook snapped. "How many times is your name in there? Five? I six my first reaping."

"That's not her fault," Marina said.

"It isn't, but it's still unfair."

"Nothing's fair, Chinook. We have Boreal's Games. The reaping tonight."

Penelope darted back into her family's tree for a second before emerging with trading buttons. Trading buttons were these little wooden circles that they could trade for food and insulation for their trees in the winter. Penelope gave the trading buttons to Marina and Chinook.

"Good luck, Marina."

"You too," Marina said, and Penelope disappears back into the tree.

They flew back to the edge of Twelve in silence. Every Games, your name is added to the reaping bowl once. But if you didn't have enough food, you could add your name in one more time for each year and you would get extra rations and insulation. It was called tesserae. Chinook and Marina added our own names in for tesserae for each of our family members. Chinook had his name in forty-two times. Marina's was in twenty times. And—as Chinook said—Penelope's was in five times. So of course Chinook was angry at Penelope for having enough to eat her whole life. For having one of the slimmest chances of being reaped in the whole of Twelve.

"See you in the square," Marina said as she and Chinook split away to go to their separate trees.

. . .

"Marina!" Phoebe cried as Marina returned home. She smiled and wrapped her wings around Phoebe. She protected her sister in any way she could, but she couldn't do anything against the reaping. The best she could do was not let her take any tesserae.

"Come on, let's eat," Marina said and flapped over to the crevice where she had stashed the insects. "Here—beetles, your favorite." Phoebe's eyes lit up and she grabbed the beetles.

"And here," Marina said coldly as she handed the moth to her mother. Ever since her father had died in a mine collapse, her mother had become distant. They all nearly starved to death before Marina could hunt well enough to feed them. Her father had been feeding them by hunting.

"I ate in the woods," she added as Phoebe tried to give her one of the beetles.

They headed for the square as soon as they finished eating. They were counted by the Peacekeepers, to make sure all of the bats were there. It was mandatory to attend the reaping—the punishment was harsh.

"You'll be fine, Phoebe," Marina told her as they were herded in separate directions. They were grouped by ages, a tree or two for each age group. "You won't be reaped. You're only in once."

She roosted on the tree designated for her age, just two away from Chinook's. They caught each other's eyes but didn't say anything. They didn't need to. _Good luck._

There was a tree in the square where everyone in the 'reaping trees' could see it—the announcing tree. One branch was at the front of the tree, where the announcements were made. The leader—Penelope's father—was roosting on that branch, giving the speech he always did at the reaping, about Boreal's Games. How the bat rebels were defeated and the owls rose to power, and Boreal's Games were created to keep the bats in line. The escort—a Capitol owl, who brought the tributes—the ones who were reaped to compete in Boreal's Games—to the Capitol, where we would stay before the Games—was perched on a branch behind him. On another branch roosted Colony Twelve's only surviving victor of Boreal's Games, Mercury Silverwing.

After the leader finished his speech, the owl escort flapped to the announcing branch as the leader roosted beside Mercury.

"Happy Boreal's Games, and may the odds be _ever _in your favor!" she hooted. Marina thought of Chinook, and his forty-two slips in the males' reaping bowl. She sent a quick prayer to Nocturna, praying that he wouldn't be reaped. The owl escort stepped along the branch and came to the females' reaping bowl. Marina didn't even have time to send a prayer for her own safety before the paper was in the owl's beak and then being read out.

It wasn't her.

"Phoebe Brightwing!"

**Okay, I have a question:**

**Who should be Glimmer? The Careers will be Vampyrum, but there's only one known female Vampyrum, Phoenix, and she's going to be Clove. Answers needed desperately!**


	2. Chapter 2

Oh no, Marina thought. Not her. It can't be her. This can't be happening.

But it was. Even though the chances of Phoebe being picked was one of the slimmest in all of Colony Twelve, she was still picked. Even though Marina took tesserae and wouldn't let Phoebe do the same. One slip, one in thousands, and still Phoebe was reaped to compete in Boreal's Games.

Marina felt pressure on her forearm, and realized that the Silverwing next to her was grabbing onto her forearm, trying to keep her on her roost. But she hardly acknowledged it. Phoebe's wingbeats were stiff and jerky, trying to make it up to the announcing branch. Marina couldn't stand it. She couldn't watch another second of it.

"Phoebe!" Her cry came out strangled. "Phoebe!" Marina unfurled her wings, shaking off the Silverwing, and flapped, panicked, to her little sister. She dove in front of Phoebe and hovered there, shielding her, and the Peacekeepers made to seize her.

"I volunteer!" she gasped. "I volunteer as tribute!"

The Peacekeeper owls stopped dead. All bats in the square stared at her.

"Lovely!" chirped the owl escort, Euphemia. "Come on up, dear. Come on up."

"No, Marina, no!" Phoebe shrieked in horror. "You can't go! You _can't!"_

"You can't go either," Marina said, harshly because she was in danger of crying, and everyone would mark her as an easy target in the arena if she cried. "Go back to the tree you were roosting on. You'll be fine." She struggled to keep her voice steady. She turned away from Phoebe and flapped, her wingstrokes stronger than she felt, up to the announcing branch to roost a few inches from where Euphemia perched.

"Bravo, bravo! That's the spirit of the Games!" Euphemia gushed. Marina could tell that she was pleased that her reaping was finally interesting. Here in Colony Twelve, there were never volunteers. The two tributes were always killed in the bloodbath. "What's your name, dear?" The owl looked under the branch at her.

"Marina Brightwing." Her voice was flat, spiritless, and sounded somehow disconnected. Her vision unfocused, both echo vision and eyesight.

"Now, let's have a big cheer for our newest tribute!" Euphemia trilled.

No one cheered. No one ever cheered. No one had a reason to cheer. The word "tribute" in Colony Twelve was pretty much synonymous with "corpse".

Euphemia ignored the crowd's refusal to cheer. "What an exciting day!" she exclaimed. "But there's more excitement to come. It's time to choose our male tribute!"

Hopping down the branch, the owl escort plucked a slip of paper from the bowl and Marina didn't even have time to wish for Chinook's safety when the name was being read.

"Shade Silverwing."

Shade Silverwing!

Not him, Marina thought. He couldn't be a tribute. Marina had never spoken to him, but she knew his name. And she couldn't have him die in the arena.

Shade's eyes widened in shock and fear, but he managed to force his face to be expressionless. Despite his horror, Marina saw that his wingbeats were steady. He roosted beside her without a word. No one volunteered for Shade. Marina was the only volunteer that Colony Twelve had ever had.

Why him? she thought again. Why did it have to be Shade? Although Marina tried to convince herself that she didn't care about him, that he had probably forgotten what he'd done for her, she couldn't let it drop. She couldn't just let _that_ go.

Just after her father had died, Marina, Phoebe, and their mother had nearly starved to death. Without her father to hunt for them, and Marina not yet being skilled enough to hunt for a living, they couldn't get food. Marina and even Phoebe tried to get their mother to find work, earn a living, but she wouldn't. She would just stay in their tree, roosting for nights on end in deep grieving. She never got over it, never. She was closed off from the world ever since. Not even when Phoebe pleaded would she break out of that horrible trance.

Marina wasn't quite old enough yet to be in the reaping age bracket, so she hadn't been able to sign up for tesserae. Marina had been certain that they would all starve to death.

But one rainy night, a few hours after midnight, Marina had been completely desperate. She and her family were freezing as well as starving, and she was in the square, trying to sell dead leaves, that were luckily still dry, as insulation. Tears had been streaming down her face when she was about to give up and just roost in the relentless, icy sheets of rain and die, but a gust of wind blew her just off course, nearer to a tree—a tree in which lived a family of Silverwings who sold food. Her wings were too frozen to try to right her course, so she let herself roost on the outside of theirs.

But Shade, yes, the same Shade who would later be reaped, poked his head out of the knothole. Looking from side to side wildly, he had locked eyes with Marina and dropped two tiger moths down to her, strategically having them fall into a crack in the bark where Marina could easily grab them. After he disappeared back inside the tree, as she was staring at the moths in shock and ecstasy, she heard a shriek of pain followed by yells.

"You _check outside for the weather!" _a voice had screeched, Shade's mother, "and you drop two _tiger moths_ into the mud?! You stupid, clumsy thing!"

Marina had grabbed the moths in her rear claws and flapped home as fast as she could, her wings unfrozen and her heart full and her eyes alight. They would live after all.

Yes. Shade Silverwing had saved her life.

And now he was a tribute. Along with Marina. She had to thank him, but how could she do that when they were to compete against each other in a killing tournament?

Well, besides Shade and Marina, there would be twenty-two other tributes. Odds were someone else would kill him.

Of course, the odds hadn't been exactly in her favor lately.

**Okay . . . I know Ariel is definitely NOT cruel and abusive to Shade, she's really kind and protective, but I had to put that in to make it fit the story! Peeta's mom abused him, and Shade is in his role, so, yeah. Just pretend that it ISN'T Ariel.**

**And I still have that Glimmer problem . . . I guess I'll just have to make an OC Glimmer-insertation.**

**Goodbye, Human beings!**


End file.
